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Post by MeanGeri on Oct 7, 2013 18:58:45 GMT -5
I was chatting with pillowpistol today and lamenting that I wish I knew how people created such great works of art with limited tools. I am so envious of certain skills I haven't learned yet. What do you wish you could get a lesson in?
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Post by chazer on Oct 7, 2013 20:53:03 GMT -5
How to draw. That would be an awesome skill to have.
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Post by MeanGeri on Oct 7, 2013 23:11:13 GMT -5
How to draw. That would be an awesome skill to have. You seem to do well.
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Post by Lamijavin on Oct 8, 2013 6:53:28 GMT -5
I struggle with faces and landscapes. And trees . I did found some good pointers on faces in the other thread of the forum, so I have been practicing some of the techniques on DQ. It helped, (I think) but I need practice. More practice! I rarely get the faces done to my liking. And landscape are a nightmare. Practice, yes, and for me, I need to draw things that I like or things that are challenging. So I alternate... hence the hits and misses! So be it.
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Post by springmorning on Oct 8, 2013 8:36:15 GMT -5
Hands! I hate drawing hands! That's why I have leaves. Lol
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Post by chazer on Oct 8, 2013 15:48:15 GMT -5
How to draw. That would be an awesome skill to have. You seem to do well. No I don't. I'm a hack. I can't do ideas right... like yesterdays with the tree behind a screen testing new leaves for the fall season. Loved my idea, hated the final product due to my lack of ability. I'm also horrible at drawing bodies, specially the hands. Faces seem to be the only thing I'm somewhat decent with.
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wilso
Active Member
Posts: 51
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Post by wilso on Oct 8, 2013 18:41:39 GMT -5
pompous lecture to follow - you have been warned
One important facet of drawing (painting, sculpture ... add a media) is about mastering tricks. A trick is a skill subset eg drawing a leaf, noses, eyes, fences, mixing colors, knowing how to do proportions etc. The more tricks you add to your skill set ie you can replicate them at will, even with variations, the less the focus is on how to draw each element but rather how each element "makes" the concept better.
However, a collection of tricks, no matter how well executed will not necessarily a good drawing make - the picture just might not work. You're either born with an aesthetic sense, bathed in it in your formative years or acquire it through seeking out, viewing, analysing, copying and importantly enjoying the work of others. Now, add tricks, to a sense of how things fit together and couple both with imagination / creativity and you have, well, art.
DrawQuest is a less than perfect artistic medium. It has a limited tool set and color palette plus the often poorly thought out quest starter drawings can make completing a quest difficult; especially for newbies. Have a look at the number of incomplete submissions on either side of any of your own. Having said that occasionally there are clever starters ie the recent "give the giraffe a scarf" gave everyone, from beginner to trick master something to work with. In the samples I looked at there were relatively fewer incomplete drawings than normal and the creativity was higher.
DrawQuest's greatest virtue is in supplying a creative challenge day after day in a relatively accessible venue (if you are on an iPad). Tricks can be learned (the playback feature, youtube vids, lessons...), practiced, practiced and practiced again and stockpiled. Worth repeating... you are mentally challenged to be creative on demand every day - priceless.
Thus endeth the lecture.... You were warned
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Post by MeanGeri on Oct 8, 2013 23:58:56 GMT -5
So apparently we need lessons on hands. Seems to be the consensus, at least.
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Post by Lamijavin on Oct 9, 2013 6:33:55 GMT -5
Forgot my biggest drawing blind spot : how to draw cartoonish characters and bring them alive! I am *so not* funny and so lost there.
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Post by chazer on Oct 9, 2013 9:17:50 GMT -5
pompous lecture to follow - you have been warnedOne important facet of drawing (painting, sculpture ... add a media) is about mastering tricks. A trick is a skill subset eg drawing a leaf, noses, eyes, fences, mixing colors, knowing how to do proportions etc. The more tricks you add to your skill set ie you can replicate them at will, even with variations, the less the focus is on how to draw each element but rather how each element "makes" the concept better. However, a collection of tricks, no matter how well executed will not necessarily a good drawing make - the picture just might not work. You're either born with an aesthetic sense, bathed in it in your formative years or acquire it through seeking out, viewing, analysing, copying and importantly enjoying the work of others. Now, add tricks, to a sense of how things fit together and couple both with imagination / creativity and you have, well, art. DrawQuest is a less than perfect artistic medium. It has a limited tool set and color palette plus the often poorly thought out quest starter drawings can make completing a quest difficult; especially for newbies. Have a look at the number of incomplete submissions on either side of any of your own. Having said that occasionally there are clever starters ie the recent "give the giraffe a scarf" gave everyone, from beginner to trick master something to work with. In the samples I looked at there were relatively fewer incomplete drawings than normal and the creativity was higher. DrawQuest's greatest virtue is in supplying a creative challenge day after day in a relatively accessible venue (if you are on an iPad). Tricks can be learned (the playback feature, youtube vids, lessons...), practiced, practiced and practiced again and stockpiled. Worth repeating... you are mentally challenged to be creative on demand every day - priceless. Thus endeth the lecture.... You were warned In other words... fake it 'til you make it?
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uineya
Active Member
New glasses and new fedora, yeah!
Posts: 41
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Post by uineya on Oct 9, 2013 13:33:43 GMT -5
I completely agree. This happens not only on drawing but on design too. There are bazillions tutorial on how to make this on illustrator or how to make that on Photoshop, but in the end there are all tricks to get something done, they not teach on design principles. Although tricks are good to learn some thing, drawing skills are an acquired habit. Illustrators and comics makers first counsel is always "keep drawing, all time", also know as practice practice practice.
Problem is that we don't realise how much practice is needed. I'm 40 and still learning a lot on drawing, even being illustrator and designer. I started around 12, drawing constantly, up to the point to fail school tests because I was drawing on it instead of answering (kids, don't do this, please). And tricks helps, but is when you try to draw everything and fail and keep trying when you really learn.
This are my suggestions to improve drawing.
1 - draw as if where not tomorrow. 2 - Copy and reproduce what you like. Is good to have own style, but copying from others will train your brain and hand and let you discover how they made. Later you will adapt it to your creativity. Take your time to SEE others drawing. Not a glimpse, not a look at this whoaaaa. Whatc it with attention. You will learn to learn from others drawings. 3 - as in sports or crafting, repetition leads to perfection. You need to get frustrated and try and try. I know. Is not enjoyable, but you need to repeat it. 4 - you cannot learn all at once. Forget it. Is impossible. Nobody can learn this way. I'm still struggling with human figure, which for some arcane reason it resist to be tamed. 5 - draw draw and draw. Did I mention that you need to draw?
Drawing technique has nothing in common with creativity. As in a lot of things you cannot do it right if your hand-eye-brain coordination is not good. Drawing all time will lead your hand to know how to do it without thinking. Creativity is what you make with your skills, not the skills itself.
I know is not the holy grail on drawing, but really is the best way to learn to draw. Simply keep drawing. A lot.
Despite all of this, of course, good tutorials helps a lot, and you can learn a lot, not because you watch the tutorial, but because you try and try to reproduce the lesson until you catch it. No miracle ways, I'm sorry.
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Post by chazer on Oct 9, 2013 13:55:06 GMT -5
I completely agree. This happens not only on drawing but on design too. There are bazillions tutorial on how to make this on illustrator or how to make that on Photoshop, but in the end there are all tricks to get something done, they not teach on design principles. Although tricks are good to learn some thing, drawing skills are an acquired habit. Illustrators and comics makers first counsel is always "keep drawing, all time", also know as practice practice practice. Problem is that we don't realise how much practice is needed. I'm 40 and still learning a lot on drawing, even being illustrator and designer. I started around 12, drawing constantly, up to the point to fail school tests because I was drawing on it instead of answering (kids, don't do this, please). And tricks helps, but is when you try to draw everything and fail and keep trying when you really learn. This are my suggestions to improve drawing. 1 - draw as if where not tomorrow. 2 - Copy and reproduce what you like. Is good to have own style, but copying from others will train your brain and hand and let you discover how they made. Later you will adapt it to your creativity. Take your time to SEE others drawing. Not a glimpse, not a look at this whoaaaa. Whatc it with attention. You will learn to learn from others drawings. 3 - as in sports or crafting, repetition leads to perfection. You need to get frustrated and try and try. I know. Is not enjoyable, but you need to repeat it. 4 - you cannot learn all at once. Forget it. Is impossible. Nobody can learn this way. I'm still struggling with human figure, which for some arcane reason it resist to be tamed. 5 - draw draw and draw. Did I mention that you need to draw? Drawing technique has nothing in common with creativity. As in a lot of things you cannot do it right if your hand-eye-brain coordination is not good. Drawing all time will lead your hand to know how to do it without thinking. Creativity is what you make with your skills, not the skills itself. I know is not the holy grail on drawing, but really is the best way to learn to draw. Simply keep drawing. A lot. Despite all of this, of course, good tutorials helps a lot, and you can learn a lot, not because you watch the tutorial, but because you try and try to reproduce the lesson until you catch it. No miracle ways, I'm sorry. Very thoughtful insight. Something that doesn't help me one bit is I'm something of a perfectionist but also an impatient person. I love art as it has the ability to stir emotion out of people, but usually it has to be done right. Maybe I will never be satisfied with what I do, and I will have to come to the realization that if others enjoy it, then I should learn to enjoy that instead.
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wilso
Active Member
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Post by wilso on Oct 10, 2013 2:18:27 GMT -5
Chazer wrote: In other words... fake it 'til you make it?
Now where did I put the soapbox... OK, here it is and up we go...
I reread my "lecture" and didn't find the words "fake it" anywhere. The whole lot was about developing your skill set in manageable bit sized chunks. If some one can't draw noses. Spend a day on noses, watch some videos, look at the work of real artists, cartoonists whatever gets your juices going then draw 100 circles on a page and pretending each circle is a head - give them each a nose. You will eventually get to the point where you will be drawing the right nose for the drawing without thinking about it.
Drawing is a life long pursuit. Its a gift which will wax and wane as life provides other priorities. The less you stress yourself, the more risks you take, the more observant you are of what's going on around you the less likely you are to become the big fish in the small pond doing the same few things perfectly - again and again.
Thus endeth the follow up lecture.
ps a BIG disclaimer. Take a look at my drawings (or not). I can't draw for crap. I doodle. When I come across something like the giraffe the other day - I had a mental picture but couldn't reproduce it. So I did an hour of looking at giraffes, cartoons, pictures and drawings. Traced a few head/neck combos. Redid them freehand. Then did them real loose and it worked. I loved the little sucker. I ended up doing 2 or three drawings of a giraffe (well, his/her's head and neck). Whether other people like them or not is not important - I liked what I did. Now I'll move on to something else as the quest inspires.
pps the polar bear is different - he is an ongoing work in progress plus he's developing into a chick magnet (ain't that right girls) and so cool (polar bear - cool)... Yep!!! definitely time to get down off the soapbox and back onto my meds.
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Post by footballfans on Oct 10, 2013 21:31:00 GMT -5
I was chatting with pillowpistol today and lamenting that I wish I knew how people created such great works of art with limited tools. I am so envious of certain skills I haven't learned yet. What do you wish you could get a lesson in?
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Post by footballfans on Oct 10, 2013 21:34:37 GMT -5
I feel the same. I enjoy drawing but wish I knew how.
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wilso
Active Member
Posts: 51
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Post by wilso on Oct 11, 2013 2:42:02 GMT -5
wilso is thinking of changing his username to slapmedown. Come on, if you can't currently draw something - learn how to or take up another pursuit. The Internet has made learning to draw easy...
Step 1 - identify something you currently can't draw - noses, horses, houses, whatever. Step 2 - go online and find a tutorial on drawing that thing - preferably in video format Step 3 - watch it through - if you can relate to the tutor save it. If you can't relate choose another and repeat Step 3 until you are happy Step 4 - watch and draw along with the tutorial. Replay any tricky bits until they are no longer tricky. Step 5 - get a screen grab of the finished drawing from the video (and any in between bits that are helpful). . If you need to, trace them again and again until you feel how the drawing fits together Step 6 - draw the "thing" freehand without the video Step 7 - repeat step 6 until you can draw that thing like it is second nature ie you are no longer copying the drawing the video; you are drawing your own interpretation.. Congrats you have added another skill sub set to your bag of tricks. Step 8 - start at step 1 with another thing. BUT revisit each newly completed trick once a week for a month, then once a month from then on.
The word can't (cannot) should be eliminated from the English language
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Post by footballfans on Oct 11, 2013 7:18:11 GMT -5
It would be nice if people with true talent but claim they aren't would stop declaring their lack of skills. Makes us skill-less folks even worse about our lame attempts.
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Post by heap241 on Oct 11, 2013 10:06:08 GMT -5
Every good artist had to start somewhere.. Sure some have raw talent, but that's all it is, raw. You have to mold it and shape it like you would anything. Sometimes art can be like math, you do it a million times and then, it just clicks and your really good. It's all steps and doing everything in order without skipping steps.
I think I can agree with Wilso, I was never an on paper artist, I was always a sculpter, big banner, pastels on sidewalk type of artist. I could draw on paper but not as well because I'm better with that 3-d shape of sculpting. So I started drawing my creations, I knew the details because I had just sculpted it, it was just getting them on paper I had a hard time with. After a lot of practice and just drawing what I see, I'm getting better and better everyday, I'm no pillowpistol or salmonnugget, but I'm confident that if I try hard enough, or do it enough times, it will just click.
Didn't mean to rant.. What I did, was at work in my down time (before the promotion) I would get blank paper, and just draw the people around me, or the environment around me. Just capture what I saw and after a while it took less time and I could recreate the image without that reference.
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Post by regcas on Oct 12, 2013 16:14:55 GMT -5
Well I agree with uineya and wilso on practice. I never took an art class and never drew stuff before this app except on Draw Something. Stick figures. Bad ones. Then I saw this app and started out with stick figures again. I still can't draw people but after months of watching everyone I follow I'm learning that everyone can be artistic. I'm a scientist by profession but I've always loved artsy stuff. So because of this app and all of you, I'm proud of how much daily drawing has improved my artistic endeavors. If you look at my earliest drawings to the current ones I have improved for sure. I still suck at drawing faces and people cuz I don't like to draw them but I'm getting good at landscapes because I love to draw them and sunsets too. No prior skills in art somehow evolved into daily drawings and wow here we are. Artistes.
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Post by pillowpistol on Oct 21, 2013 23:45:27 GMT -5
Well I agree with uineya and wilso on practice. I never took an art class and never drew stuff before this app except on Draw Something. Stick figures. Bad ones. Then I saw this app and started out with stick figures again. I still can't draw people but after months of watching everyone I follow I'm learning that everyone can be artistic. I'm a scientist by profession but I've always loved artsy stuff. So because of this app and all of you, I'm proud of how much daily drawing has improved my artistic endeavors. If you look at my earliest drawings to the current ones I have improved for sure. I still suck at drawing faces and people cuz I don't like to draw them but I'm getting good at landscapes because I love to draw them and sunsets too. No prior skills in art somehow evolved into daily drawings and wow here we are. Artistes. Reggie you are inspiring in all sorts of waysI really like Wilso's and Uineya's take on this. Remember all this is subjective, and there are many different categories of "good". If this were a college prep course to train us to be professional illustrators, then we could all use spend some quality time in front of a still life, but it's not. When I watch cartoons, I enjoy the aesthetic differences between each show, from flapjack, to gumball, to Chowder, to justice league, and I don't necessarily judge them based on how well the noses and hands look. I do however like the idea of playing your strengths and in the meantime developing your weaknesses. That can apply to everyone, myself included. Uineya alluded to creativity dependent of technique, and I agree wholeheartedly. Appreciate your skills, add your own style, set yourself apart from the pack. I am very excited to take meangeri's lessons, any idea when they will be?
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